


The Dying Fall

by moemachina



Category: Shakespeare - Twelfth Night
Genre: Angst, M/M, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2008
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-15
Updated: 2012-08-15
Packaged: 2017-11-12 05:28:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/487217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moemachina/pseuds/moemachina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sebastian has drowned once. He will not risk drowning again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dying Fall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mina Lightstar](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Mina+Lightstar).



> Written for Yuletide 2008.

In dreams, the waves are warm and tender, and they snugly swaddle him. In dreams, it is a pleasure to drown.

In waking hours, Sebastian remembers differently: the sharp waves slapping his face, the horrible cold, the heavy weight of the water dragging him down. In waking hours, he shudders and tries not to remember.

And yet every night, Sebastian dreams of the sea -- the warm and loving sea -- and every night he wakes suddenly in the dark.

On the ship, this waking was especially awful. The sounds of creaking rigging and sloshing waves continued even as he opened his eyes, even as he tumbled out of his hammock, even as he made his way between the rows of sleeping men. On the ship, he would climb to the deck and breathe with great, desperate gulps. He did not like the sound of the water, but he would endure it for the opportunity to stand under the stars and their blessed bowl of empty space.

He is not very good with confined spaces now. He needs air and absence.

On land, the waking is easier. There is now a clear break between dreaming and not-dreaming; the latter is now marked by the sound of frogs chorusing outside his window. He wakes, every night, and thinks that those frogs are excellent musicians indeed. He can see the stars outside his window. He is far from the water now. He is safe.

And, yet, he cannot fall back asleep, no matter how hard he tries, no matter how still he lies. He has drowned once. He will not risk drowning again.

He throws back the covers; he hobbles past the open window, out the door, and down the hall.

***

The kitchen had a candle that was burning and a man who was humming.

"Well-met by moonlight, proud Roderigo," Antonio said. "Another bad night?"

The man who called himself Roderigo grunted quietly and sat at Antonio's table. "It's too hot to sleep tonight."

Antonio remained tactfully silent at this, but every man aboard his ship had known that Roderigo suffered night terrors. They had known this from bitter experience, for Roderigo cried and thrashed in his sleep, and it took a sturdy man indeed to sleep through those piercing noises. Antonio had eventually taken pity on his crew and moved Roderigo into his own captain's quarters, and he had suffered through the ensuing nights (full of panicked yelps and sporadic thumps from the opposite end of the darkened room) with the grim patience of a martyr. His sufferings had continued in slightly muted form on land. The wall between their rooms was thin.

It helped that Antonio only needed four hours of sleep a night. It helped, a little.

But there was not the slightest shadow of this recollection on Antonio's face as he smiled at Roderigo. He had an open, expressive face and a full set of teeth; he had a face that insisted upon smiles in return, and Roderigo guardedly obliged.

"See, look here," Antonio said, "I am half-finished with this piece. What do you think it is?"

Roderigo squinted at the block of whittled wood in Antonio's hand. "Um. An anchor?"

"What?" Antonio clutched his chest dramatically. "It is a mermaid! See here, these are her fins, and this part will be her hair..."

Roderigo frowned. "I don't...well, maybe...no, I don't, I don't see it at all."

"An anchor?" moaned Antonio. "An anc...well, I suppose, if you look at it from this angle, it _does_ look like an anchor. A bit. Maybe? And perhaps it would be _better_ as an anchor..." Antonio trailed off into musing silence.

Roderigo looked around him in confusion, as if only now noticing the incongruity of Antonio whittling by candlelight past midnight. "And you, Antonio? No sleep for you as well?"

It would have been hard to sleep through the rising cries from Roderigo's room in the last hour, but Antonio's face betrayed nothing as he shrugged. "I have never needed much sleep."

"You are a lucky man," said the perpetually exhausted Roderigo.

"It has been as much a curse as a blessing, I declare. Other men may put an end to their boredom by falling into sleep; I must always invent further ways to occupy myself." Antonio ran a hand through his shaggy hair and ruefully inspected his handiwork. "Perhaps I would be better occupied in counting sheep."

"But it is surely an asset to a captain, is it not? To be awake and alert?"

"Oh, certainly," Antonio said. "I take a great many watches when I am at sea. It always impresses the men. They like to think that they work under a sleepless and vigilant captain."

"And I suppose...you will go back to the sea soon."

"Oh, well... Not for a while yet, I suspect," Antonio said carefully. "I am well-set for the time being, and now is not a particularly auspicious time for merchant-work or privateering. I think that I have earned a time of ease and rest." Antonio looked up to his ceiling with a smile. "And, besides, I like a chance to come here. There is not much point in owning a little cottage if you never sleep there."

"But eventually, you'll go back," Roderigo persisted. "You'll go back to the sea."

"Yes," the other man said gently. "One day I'll go back to the sea. But not for a while yet. Not until you're set."

Roderigo gave an involuntary shudder. "I'll never go back. Not the sea. No, never."

He had died in the sea. The man that Antonio had pulled out was someone different, someone new, someone called Roderigo for the time being.

"Oh, my friend, you're young," Antonio said with half a laugh. "You don't know all the catastrophes that can hit you on the land. You've never lived through a hurricane, have you? We get them in these waters, you know, and there is no place on this island that you could escape one. The sea is not the only place with perils." He put down his whittling work and regarded Roderigo with a cocked eyebrow. "Besides, you might want to leave this island one day. Not, of course, that you aren't welcome to my house for as long as you need it."

Roderigo hunched in his chair and bit the inside of his lip. The sea had taken all of his possessions, all of his wealth, all of his life. Now he lived on the sufferance of a sea-captain with an amiable face.

"I suppose...I must seek my fortune," he said in a low voice.

Antonio suppressed a smile. "Oh, eventually, as all men must. There is no hurry, though. I did not mean to rush you along."

"No," Roderigo said, looking down at his hands. "No, I have been treading water. I must go forth and find a way to live." He closed his eyes briefly. "I must spend a little more time on the sea, I suppose."

Antonio stood up and went to the kitchen window, where the faint dishwater light of dawn was beginning to appear. "There is no rush."

Roderigo looked up and regarded the other man's back. A year ago, he would have found nothing odd about this man, who had pulled him from the sea and into his ship, his cabin, his house. A year ago, a well-heeled young man would have considered such consideration his natural due.

He had no long practice with introspection; he had left introspection to his sister, who had brains and cunning enough for the two of them. But now his sister was gone, lost along with his heart in the warm and tender sea, and he must do his reckoning for himself.

And so: here was a man who had adopted a penniless, battered man as if that man were a lost puppy. Roderigo had dined at his table and slept in his guest-bed and spent his days mooching along in the other man's bluff and hearty wake. Antonio had done everything for Roderigo. Roderigo was beginning to suspect that Antonio would do _anything_ for him.

In certain lights, it made no sense; Roderigo had done nothing for Antonio. He was nothing but a burden on the other man. He was nothing but an anchor.

In other lights, perhaps it did make sense, but Roderigo found himself shying away from these thoughts. They seemed complicated and troublesome, like his memories of the sea, like his memories of his sister.

Roderigo sighed, and Antonio turned around at the sound. "There's no rush," he said again, misunderstanding the sigh. "When I was your age, it took me _years_ to find myself."

Roderigo shrugged, and Antonio took a step forward to lay an impulsive hand on Roderigo's shoulder. "It will get better. It is difficult now, while all your scars are still fresh, but it will get better. Don't worry yourself about it. _It will get better_ , my friend."

Roderigo barely heard his words. He was concentrating on the weight and warmth of Antonio's hand bearing down on his shoulder. Roderigo was not very good with physical contact, not since the sea, not since his fall.

"I will go back to bed, I think," he said gruffly to the startled Antonio. "I will see you in the morning, captain."

"Sleep well, friend," Antonio said. And then, as Roderigo made his way back down the hall, he heard: "And perhaps I will seek my fortune alongside you."

***

Sebastian lies in the darkness and remembers the pressure of Antonio's hand on his shoulder. He is uneasy. He dimly senses that something is moving on the horizon. He feels as if he is watching a tall wave approach and waiting for it to crash over him. 

He shrinks back from the thought. He will not be helpless again, he thinks determinedly. He will find his fortune; he will find some estate far from the sound of the sea. He will wrap himself in all the security that pearls and signet rings can provide. He will make himself new, and he will make himself into someone well-shielded from tempests. He will take no risks; he will make no ventures. He will not depend on others.

He will be someone else. He will stop up his eyes, his ears, his heart.

He whispers a word in the dark. "Viola."

He has drowned once. He will not risk drowning again. 

 


End file.
